I Never Told You
by ashlice
Summary: Set two months after season four ends. She finds him in denial, he finds out more than he thought he ever would. Brooke/Lucas one-shot.


**A/N - This came to me this morning while i was updating another fic and I couldn't make it go away. I love BL so much, and that will never change. I know it seems silly to write this, given that I haven't seen an episode since season six and the show is over now. But I had to write this one-shot. It takes place at the end of their summer after senior year. Now, we all know that Lucas proposes to Peyton after his book comes out, three years after they graduate from Tree Hill High. But I decided to change that, and have him to do it right after senior year ends, meaning that this takes place after ****season four.**

"Whatever happened to us, Luke?"

It's a loaded question, and he can't believe that she's dared to ask it. He's not certain if it's a general question, or if she's referring to a specific moment in their history. He's scared to answer her partially because he doesn't want to say the wrong thing, but also because he's not sure that she really wants an answer.

"We drifted apart, I guess." What a horrible, stupid answer. He hates himself for saying it and for lowering what they had to such a demeaning standard. People like them didn't just drift apart.

She's sad now, and he knows it. As usual, it's all his fault. She turns away from him, draping one arm across the back of the bench that they were sitting on. Her stance seems too casual for the conversation they are having.

"Yeah, I guess we did." She says quietly. Her lips come together in a sad smile, her dimples deepening slightly. Brooke Davis is as beautiful as ever, and Lucas Scott doesn't understand what happened to them. When did they get so lost? She had been everything to him. He'd said that she was _the _one. Not only had he said it, but he'd felt it too. He didn't think he'd ever love anyone like he loved Brooke. But, looking at her now, he knew that too much damage had been done.

"Brooke, I'm sorry." he says. This was an even worse thing to say than his answer to her previous question. Painfully, he realizes that these were the last words he said to her once she broke up with him only a few months ago. He can tell that she's realized the same thing as her body goes rigid beside him.

They are sitting on the Rivercourt in Tree Hill, and it is the official end of the summer, the summer after their senior year. The following day, the both of them would be heading off to their respective destinations, starting fresh in a new place. She'd found him here, shooting baskets by himself as a pathetic attempt at pretending that everything wasn't changing.

"Even you can't stop time, Lucas Scott." her raspy voice had said from behind him once she'd shown up. He hadn't been surprised that she'd known exactly what he'd been up to. Now they sat awkwardly on the bench, almost in complete silence. She'd punctured it with her dangerous question, and he'd ruined it with his insensitive answer.

"Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had I not broken up with you. I wonder if you would've fallen for Peyton anyway. And then I realize that I shouldn't question that anymore because when you get down to it, she wasn't really the root of our problems. You and me, we're not the same people anymore." Her voice is soft, thoughtful. But she chooses to stare at her hands instead of at him.

"I think you're only getting better, Brooke." He says. She laughs sadly and shakes her head.

"No I'm not. I still hate Peyton for having you. And now I hate her more for running off on you, when I gave you up because I thought she was the one for you." He hears the bitterness in her voice now, the regret and pain of her decision. "I hate you even more for giving up on us even though I did the same thing."

He hadn't expected that, though he figured that he deserved it. Still, her words left him feeling winded. She apparently had a lot to get off her chest, because she didn't stop there.

"I loved you more than anything, Lucas, and I was crushed when I realized that it wasn't enough just to be in love anymore. You weren't the same. You used to not be able to go two minutes without talking to me. By the time we broke up, we hardly spoke everyday. You used to never let me leave your room mad, but leading up to our break up, all you did was let me walk away from you. It was always me that had to come back and try to reason with you, try to fix the situation. And then I realized that maybe I'd changed too. Maybe you didn't want me like you used to, because of that." She'd said a lot. He found himself having to break down what she'd said, and process each thought individually.

"I wanted to tell you that I wanted to fix what was wrong between us. I wanted you to know that I still wanted you." He said, once her words had really sunk in.

Brooke finally turned to meet his eyes, her eyes glazed over with tears. "Then why didn't you?"

Lucas had asked himself that very question everyday for months after their break up. Sometimes, even while he'd been dating Peyton, he'd watch her walk through the halls at school and wonder why he'd never spoken up. He'd convinced himself that deep down, he must have known that it would not work out between them, that it was her mess of a best friend that really needed him.

"_I need you to need me back!"_

Her words echo sharply in his head, and he sees her just as she was that day. Her devastated expression cut through him as he realized he'd been hurting her without even knowing it. That was a moment he'd buried, not wanting to ever relive it.

"I didn't know what to say, Brooke." he finally said, trying desperately to erase the image of her crying in her pretty red dress as he let her down all over again.

"You could have said anything. If you really wanted me, you _would _have said anything." She said coldly.

"I didn't think there was anything that would change your mind."

"For someone who's supposed to be so good with words, you sure lost them when you needed them the most." She replied.

"What brought this on, Brooke?" He couldn't help asking. Everything had seemed fine towards the end of the year. Brooke and Peyton had seemingly made up, and Brooke had forgiven him. The day that he returned home after Peyton had rejected his proposal, he went straight to Rachel's place, where he knew Brooke had been staying. They'd sat in silence for a long time. He hadn't even told her what happened, she already knew because Peyton had called her. They sat without speaking, and the next morning, he got up and left. This was the first time they were speaking since that night.

"I've been thinking about this ever since you read to me from your book. You know, that part about me? You made me the other girl in your story." She said pointedly.

"And?"

She bit down on her bottom lip before she went on. "But when you wrote about me, about being with me, I felt like you thought I was something more. And I tried to ignore it. I went off to California with Peyton, knowing that she was your girlfriend and your story was really about her. When she decided to stay after I came back to Tree Hill, and you ran off to propose to her, I really believed that breaking up with you must have been for the best after all. Then she turned you down and you came to see me." She paused and looked up at the dark sky. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly through her nose.

He could see her bottom lip quivering, her whole body was trembling. He realized that she was crying. He wanted to tell her to stop, that there was nothing in this world that made him more sad than to see her cry. She turned to look at him again, tears still streaming down her face. He knew they were angry tears by her fierce expression, by the way she was clenching and unclenching her jaw.

"I called her after you left. I called her and told she was so stupid for saying no to you. And do you know what she said to me? She said that she'd always love you, and you'd always love her, so maybe she'd get to have you again in the future. But she just couldn't do it right now, she had to focus on herself, and it was too soon to think about being with you forever. She said she didn't need you right now. I always knew she was selfish when it came to you Lucas, but nothing that she's said has ever made me that furious." She stops, takes another deep breath.

"Brooke-" He tries to cut in, but she won't let him.

"Let me get this off my chest, Lucas. You gave her your heart, offered to let her keep it forever and she turned you down because it wasn't convenient for her at the time. She didn't need rescuing, and she thought she'd set you aside for another time, as if she could just waltz back into your life and everything would have to stop because she's Peyton and you're Lucas and nothing can ever stand in the way of fate's most star crossed love story."

She's up and pacing now, hands shoved in the pockets of her tiny denim shorts, the ones which he used to appreciate so much any time she walked by him wearing them. Even now, in what was probably the worst time to do so, he found himself eying her shapely, milky thighs. This made him feel dirty, like he was leering at her as she poured her heart out to him. This whole ordeal made him feel dirty and horrible in every possible way.

"And the worst part of it all is that it's not even about her! I keep thinking of the time right before we broke up, where I was trying so hard to pretend as if I was still close to you. And you were just completely oblivious to how lost I was becoming in our relationship. And Lucas, that hurt me so much. I miss what we were, and I'm scared that I'll never get to have that again. I'm terrified that it was a once in a lifetime thing and that I lost it when I lost you. And damn it Lucas, why aren't you saying anything?"

He guesses that this is probably not a good time for him to point out that it was she who was not letting him get a word in. Instead, he stands up and closes the gap between them. He's towering over her petite frame, as she looks up at him, begging him one last time let her all the way in. He reaches one hand up to the side of her face and it looks as if his touch is not something that she wants. Her body tenses, but she doesn't move away.

"I always knew you were the one, Brooke."

She shook her head. "But you chose Peyton. You said she was the one you wanted to be there when all of your dreams came true. You asked her to _marry you_, Lucas."

She was right. As usual, she was right and he was stupid for ever letting her go. "It doesn't change the fact that you're the one, Brooke."

She shakes her head again, this time reaching one hand up to pull his own hand away from her cheek. "No, I'm not. Not anymore."

She turns away from him, walking towards the hoop. She leans against it, eyes closed. She stays like that for a few more seconds, and he doesn't dare move.

"Is it too late for us, Brooke?" Now it was his turn to ask a loaded question. She opens her eyes, looks at him from a distance. He tried to remember the last time when there hadn't been any distance between them at all.

"Yeah." She says sadly.


End file.
